Reliable predictions indicate that there will be over 300 million cellular telephone customers worldwide by the year 2000. Within the United States, cellular service is offered by cellular service providers, by the regional Bell companies, and by the national long distance operators. The enhanced competition has driven the price of cellular service down to the point where it is affordable to a large segment of the population.
The current generation of cellular phones is used primarily for voice conversations between a subscriber handset (or mobile station) and another party through the wireless network. A smaller number of mobile stations are data devices, such as personal computers (PCs) equipped with cellular/wireless modems. Because the bandwidth for a current generation mobile station is typically limited to a few tens of kilobits per second (Kbps), the applications for the current generation of mobile stations are relatively limited.
However, this is expected to change in the next (or third) generation of cellular/wireless technology, sometimes referred to as “3G” wireless/cellular, where a much greater bandwidth will be available to each mobile station (i.e., 125 Kbps or greater). The higher data rates will make Internet applications for mobile stations much more common. For instance, a 3G cell phone (or a PC with a 3G cellular modem) may be used to browse web sites on the Internet, to transmit and receive graphics, to execute streaming audio and/or video applications, and the like. In sum, a much higher percentage of the wireless traffic handled by 3G cellular systems will be Internet protocol (IP) traffic and a lesser percentage will be traditional voice traffic.
When a subscriber finds some fault in the operation of his or her wireless handset, identifying and correcting the fault usually requires taking the handset to a nearby service center where a technician loads a custom diagnostic software program into the handset to pinpoint the fault. Often, the fault does not lie in the hardware. Detecting this is costly and time consuming for the subscriber, the service provider and/or the handset vendor.
In 3G systems, the increased bandwidth for data applications makes many new and innovative services possible. One such service is a mechanism for doing handset diagnostics remotely by downloading a short diagnostic program using Internet protocol (IP) based transport. A diagnostic operation may be executed by:
a) downloading a special diagnostic application program written specifically for the handset used by the subscriber and, after the diagnostic program has completed, reinstalling the original handset software. The special diagnostic program must be written specifically for each model of the handset, since hardware addresses and the like may change from handset to handset. The special diagnostic program may be downloaded by a serial connection of over-the-air (OTA); and
b) maintaining a permanent copy of the diagnostic program in non-volatile memory in each handset.
Unfortunately, these methods have several drawbacks. It is costly to have a subscriber bring a handset into the service center for simple diagnostic testing and repairs. It also is expensive for the handset manufacturer to develop separate diagnostic programs for each model of a handset. It is not cost-effective to integrate the diagnostic program into the regular software of the handset, since it takes up additional space and is seldom used. This amounts to optimizing a design for failure. Additionally, it is cumbersome for the service center or the wireless service provider to maintain separate diagnostic programs for every brand and model of handsets. Furthermore, if the diagnostic program over-writes or inadvertently corrupts the existing handset software, it may be impossible for the handset to become operational again without taking it back to the service center for re-programming.
Therefore, there is a need in the art for improved systems and methods for performing diagnostic operations on wireless handsets and other types of mobile stations. In particular, there is a need in the art for systems and methods for performing over-the-air diagnostic testing of wireless handsets that minimizes subscriber interaction. More particularly, there is a need for systems and methods for performing over-the-air diagnostic testing of wireless handsets without using different diagnostic software in handsets from different manufacturers.